An Iowa Garden

My Mother-in-law, a lady of copious charm and wit for whom the expression 'sharp as a tack' was invented, occasionally misplaces something, and when she can't find it she then worries that she might be slipping a bit. She was over here a few days ago in her perennial but futile quest to beat me playing Rummy-Kub, and launched into a story about how she had misplaced a stack of old check registers and had looked everywhere for them, to no avail... it upset her because she was worried it might be a sign of early memory loss. I was diplomatic but I pointed out that with all the stuff she has saved in boxes and drawers, that I probably wouldn't be able to find my own rear end in her house.
In order to make her feel better, I then told her how I once lost a chicken... then found it. A few years ago we had a beloved 16 year old cat who for no reason that we or the vet could ascertain, just totally stopped eating. One day I was cutting up one of those broasted whole chickens you get from the deli, when Toaster the cat came shambling out into the kitchen and started meowing. On a whim I tore her off a little piece of chicken, which she gobbled down and meowed for more. That was the one thing she'd eat, so each week I'd go to the store and buy a whole broasted chicken for her, tearing off a little for her each day. One day I went to get the chicken out of the refrigerator, and it wasn't there. I looked all through the refrigerator... nothing. I knew there wasn't much meat left on it, so thought I might have absent-mindedly thrown it away, so I went through all the trash... nothing. I went through the cupboards, the house, the refrigerator again, the freezer... nothing.
Well, this is the point at which you start wondering about alien encounters or broasted chicken burglars. I finally just bought another chicken. A few days later I went to heat up a piece of left-over pizza in the microwave (for breakfast, I seem to recall). There was the chicken, sitting in the microwave. I now remembered that our other two cats were snooping about in the kitchen, so I'd shut the chicken in the microwave until I had a chance to wash my hands to put it back in the refrigerator.
I've always been for the most part a glass-half-full kind of guy (whining about the weather being an exception... too hot, too dry, too cold). Therefore losing track of a chicken for three days didn't bother me. I was just grateful we hadn't gone on vacation for a week or so right then.